


Of Angels and Men

by castielrisingabove



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Angel Castiel, Angels are hunted, Angst, Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, Fluff, Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, more tags to come?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-07-26 04:13:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7559656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castielrisingabove/pseuds/castielrisingabove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel hunting is the family business and Dean would have excelled at it, if it wasn't for the haunting memory of a blue eyed angel saving him and his brother from the flames of a terrible house fire. Just as he's on his way to building himself a new life, however, Dean is pulled back into the fray when the blue-eyed angel returns with chilling news about Sam...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He was four. His mother, Mary, smelled like cinnamon and sugar and apples, though Dean at the time didn’t have names for any of those smells and simply thought she smelled like pie. She’d read him his favorite story, with Dean by her side and his baby brother, Sam, on her knee. Then, softly, she’d tucked him in, giving him a kiss goodnight.

“Mom,” Dean called out, worry tinging his voice, “Don’t go! What if something scary is in the closet?”

Mary paused in the doorway, a smile on her lips. “Do you remember what I always tell you when you’re scared?”

Dean’s brow furrowed, his momma told him so many things it was hard to keep track of them sometimes. He scanned the room, looking at the model airplane his daddy had made him, then the pile of books on the sturdy wood shelf, and then...the ceramic angel sculpture. It was a polished white, the angel’s wings folded behind his back, arms outstretched. His eyes lit up. 

“Angels are watching over me?” he asked brightly.

Mary beamed. “That’s right, Dean. Angels are watching over you. And they would never let my little man get hurt, would they?”

“Nope!”

Mary stepped into the room to press another kiss to Dean’s forehead when Sam started to fuss. Dean didn’t mind, Sammy was a baby and Mary had told him that babies fussed because they didn’t know how to talk yet. 

“Angels watch over Sammy too, right?”

Mary nodded, bouncing Sam up and down on her hip to soothe him. “Yes. And right now, Mommy has to put him to bed so the angels can do their work, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And Dean? I love you.”

“I love you too, Mommy.”

His eyes didn’t leave the ceramic angel. They traced the gentle curves of the feathers on the wings, imaging out some magic winged creature stood in the room somewhere, beautiful white wings at the ready to stretch over Dean and protect him from whatever was in the closet. 

Dean wasn’t sure how long it took him to fall asleep, but he  _ did  _ know when he woke up that something was wrong. A strange yellow light illuminated the room and everything smelled bad. Like the time his mother had left a casserole in the oven for too long. Dean stumbled out of the room, eyes stinging from smoke and a harsh heat that he couldn’t identify. 

The light was coming from Sam’s room and Dean picked up his pace. “Mommy?” Dean cried, “Daddy? Sammy?”

The heat was unbearable in Sam’s room, flames crawling up the walls and creeping out into the hallway. Smoke was everywhere, tears streamed down Dean’s eyes as he tried to understand what was going on. Mary was screaming, pinned under part of the ceiling that had been caved in. His father, John, looked frantic.

Suddenly, John was shoving a bundle, baby Sammy, into his arms. “Take your brother and get out of here!” his dad shouted, giving Dean a push.

So Dean tried to run. His little legs stumbling down the hallway, eyes burning as he tried to figure out where the stairs were. Mommy had said to be careful on the stairs, to not run down them or he might fall and he couldn’t fall. Not with Sammy in his arms. 

The ceiling above the stairs was already aflame by the time Dean made it to them. Carefully he tried to tiptoe down the stairs. Slowly. One step at a time. Dean tried to ignore Sammy’s wails and the awful smell that made his nose burn. He was trying so hard to ignore all these things that Dean didn’t notice that the ceiling was starting to crack and moan, was starting to cave in…

And suddenly everything was happening all at once, a huge flaming chunk of drywall and wood plummeting towards Dean and Sam. Dean screamed, closing his eyes and bracing for the pain...but the pain never came.

Dean looked up and the first thing he saw was a pair of stunningly blue eyes. They stood out in stark contrast with the red and yellow hues of the fire that surrounded them. The eyes belonged to a man, but the man was not his dad. This man had messy dark hair and...Dean’s eyes widened as his eyes fell upon a pair of strong, black wings. They looked nothing like the angel in his bedroom, and yet Dean knew, with some strange certainty, that this angel was  _ his _ . 

And this angel was single-handedly holding up a flaming section of the house, keeping it from hurting them. Dean wondered numbly if the angel was in any pain. He’d certainly be hurting if he tried to touch the fire.

“Hold tight,” the angel commanded, his voice deep and gravely, and Dean found himself gripping the angel’s trench coat (not a robe, like the sculpture in his bedroom, Dean noted) with one hand, the other still clutching Sam. He felt a strong arm wrap around them both and Dean relaxed. They were safe. His angel was there to save them.

There was a rush of air and Dean found himself feeling a little sick to his stomach as he pressed his face into the trench coat of his angel. When he pulled away, Dean saw they were outside of the house. To his horror, most of the house seemed to be lit by the flames.

Dean tugged the angel’s trench coat. “You gotta save my mommy,” he said earnestly.

The look that crossed the angel’s face was one Dean did not understand. One of sadness, of fear and worry. But when his blue eyes met Dean’s, they were all matter of serious. “I will try to save your parents...but Dean?” 

Dean’s breath caught as he realized the angel knew his name.

“Please forgive me if I fail.”

And, in the blink of an eye, Dean was on the ground with Sam in his arms, the angel gone.

The rest of the night was a blur. Dean vaguely remembered the red lights of the fire truck, the wail of the sirens. Men pouring out, racing into the house as Dean cried out that his mommy and daddy were in there.

They only brought one of his parents out alive. 

“I don’t know how you survived,” the fireman said to John, “That far into the fire? You should have died with your wife…”

And that was how Dean learned his mother had died.

He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the flaming house, which was collapsing. Trying to shut out the firetrucks and the ambulance and the strangers. For a moment, all Dean saw was darkness, and then, as though seared into his memory, Dean saw those blue eyes.

_ Please forgive me if I fail. _

It was this memory that has haunted Dean for the the rest of his life.


	2. The Aftermath

After the fire, Dean didn’t tell anyone about his angel. Not even baby Sammy. When the doctors asked him how he got out of house unharmed, Dean had gone silent, shaking his head without a word. The doctors decided it was PTSD, and Dean was left alone.  

He’d stayed quiet for months afterwards. Quiet while John packed up the few belongings that had been salvaged and drove away from Kansas with Dean and Sam in their 1967 Impala. Quiet when John moved them from motel to motel, never settling down, never staying for longer than a week. He stayed quiet while John tried to gently coax him out of his sadness, and stayed quiet when John grew angry at those attempts failing.

Every night, Dean lay in bed, wondering if his angel, the man with blue eyes, was still watching after him. Or if he’d died in the fire too. 

Weeks turned into months, which turned into years. John would work odd jobs during the day and get drunk at night, leaving Dean to care for Sam. It was Dean who learned to clumsily change Sam’s diapers. Dean who made sure Sam’s shoes (which he was constantly outgrowing) fit right, that he had clothes to match the weather. Dean often silently prayed that the blue eyed angel would come help. 

To his surprise, the angel did.

The occasions were rare, and  _ always _ when John wasn’t around. It happened one night not long after the fire, when Sammy wouldn’t stop crying and John still hadn’t come home. The angel had rocked the baby to sleep on the edge of Dean’s bed before tapping two fingers to Dean’s forehead, sending him to sleep as well.

Another time, when Dean was seven and Sam was three. They had run out of food and money. John had been gone for days. And Sammy was so hungry, constantly tugging on Dean’s shirt and begging for something,  _ anything _ , and Dean was so desperate to satiate the needs of his brother that he called out for his angel. The angel had appeared with a jar of peanut butter, a jar of grape jelly and a bag of bread. It was enough to last them the week, John returned before the final two pieces were gone.

The final visit happened when Dean was eight. That night, Dean had merely called for comfort. He missed his mother. He hated traveling on the open road for so long and wished, oh so desperately, that he had a friend. Not that Sammy was bad, Dean tried to explain, but Sam was his brother and he just wanted someone...anyone.

That day, the angel’s blue eyes looked worried. Sad, almost. He played with Dean on the nearby playground, pushing Dean on the swings, watching as he climbed to the very top of the jungle gym and even caught him as he tried to jump off the slide. When Dean hugged him, the angel looked as though he was about to cry. 

Dean wanted to ask what was wrong, but at that moment, John’s voice rang out across the field, calling for Dean. Dean turned to answer his dad, but when he turned back, the angel was gone.

A month later, a news broadcast announced the existence of guardian angels.

The angels, it was said, looked after every individual. Which, of course, brought up questions. Why, if people were supposedly protected by these supernatural beings, did bad things happen? Why were people robbed, injured and killed? A group arose, known as Humans Against Angelic Deeds (HAAD), that pointed out that these powerful creatures must be shirking their responsibilities. They began to  _ blame _ the guardian angels for everything that went wrong. Every crime was heaped on the angel’s shoulders. And the group wanted the angels to pay.

John was a passionate supporter of HAAD, finally able to give an outlet to his grief over losing Mary. At first, his involvement meant traveling the country, giving speeches about his loss of his wife in order to rally support to the group.

This didn’t sit right with Dean, who often thought about the blue eyed angel who had  _ saved _ him and Sam to begin with. The angel’s actions did not seem cruel, or even ambivalent. In fact, the angel had seemed truly sorrowful at the possible prospects of not being able to save Mary.

Although...the fact remained that his angel  _ didn’t _ save his mom.

Two years later, when Dean was ten and Sam six, John’s role in HAAD increased, and he was assigned to a task force created to hunt down angels. Dean had recoiled in fear when John brought home his first shotgun, followed soon after by other weapons. At first, it was kinds Dean recognized from movies he’d seen on TV, like handguns and knives. But soon it was other things. Bear traps, nets, chainsaws. Dean even swore he saw a flame thrower in John’s arsenal. 

It was bad enough when John hunted them. He’d come home late at night, splattered in blood and smelling of burned feathers. But what was far worse was when John dragged  _ Dean _ into it. Dean was ten when he learned to use a shotgun.

The training was hard, with John shouting at Dean every time his shot missed the target, or his throw was weak, or the setting of the trap shoddy. He would hit Dean upside the head anytime the boy grew close to tears, forcing Dean to teach himself how not to cry. 

On particularly bad days, John would threaten to pull Sam into the line of work. 

This threat worked wonders, with Dean willing to do almost anything to protect his younger brother. So he weathered the skinned knees, the dark bruises and calloused fingertips in an attempt to keep Sam safe. For a while it worked.

Until John took him on his first hunt.

Training with a shotgun is a completely different experience than hunting a living, breathing creature. They’d heard word of an angel in Utah, creeping around healing people. As though the healing would make up for the multitude of deaths it had no doubt caused. The hunt lasted long into the night, with the angel trying to take refuge in the mountains. The angel was clever. But John, well, he was one step ahead.

Dean had followed John in the dark forest, trying to keep himself from shivering so much, as the shaking caused his shotgun to rattle. And he had to keep that at the ready. John warned Dean that the angels were fast and if he wasn’t ready at all times, well, he might as well not show up. 

He nearly jumped out of his skin, though, at the strange, bird-like shriek that echoed through the otherwise still forest. John smiled, a dark, scary smile. “The angel’s gotten itself caught in a trap,” he muttered, kicking into a run. Dean tried to follow, but his little ten-year old legs weren’t nearly as fast as John’s and soon his father was lost in the trees. Dean stumbled, trying to find his father, but terrified if he called out, his father would grow angry. Or, worse, it would not be his father who found him, but another angel.

A memory of blue eyes flashed and Dean felt himself calming, despite all the things his father had tried to teach him about angels.

He wandered the darkened forest, trying to pin-point the wailing. Dean didn’t want to admit it, but the screams sounded  _ scared _ . He almost felt bad for the angel. That is, until he stumbled onto the trap himself.

It was a small valley, tucked away far from the trail. The trees thinned, leaving only dead leaves and new brush in a small opening. A nearby campfire implied that this section was camped in, though likely not this early in the year, not with the strains of snow still settled nearby.

The angel was pinned to the ground, wing caught in a heavy bear trap. The sharp teeth of the trap seemed to have broken the wing and the feathers were matted in blood and dirt. The angel itself was a young woman, brown hair hanging loosely around her face, which was drenched in sweat. Her head swiveled around sharply to face Dean and, not unlike the blue-eyed angel, her grey eyes blazed with intensity.

“Let me go!” she shouted, voice hoarse.

Dean’s gun rattled in his hands. Where was his dad? How had  _ he _ found the angel before him? And, were there other angels? His reverie was cut off by another cry of pain from the angel in front of him. She sounded oddly like Sam, after he’d gotten his fingers caught in a drawer, tears leaving tracks on her dust-streaked cheeks.

“Please…” she begged. Dean found himself slowly lowering his gun to the ground.

“Have you hurt humans?” he asked. She shook her head earnestly. “Have you tried to help them?” She nodded vigorously.

Perhaps if John had been there, things would have played out differently. He would have told Dean that angels lie, that angels do not value human life. Would have stressed that the angel would say anything to be free of the trap, and reminded him that angels were the reason his mother was dead.

But John was not there. And so Dean found himself creeping towards her. His fingers tentatively brushed her feathers, which were grey and oh, so soft, trying to find his way to the mechanism that released the bear trap. She recoiled at the touch.

“I have to open the trap,” Dean explained.

Unfortunately, Dean had never quite had the strength to open those traps in the past and it hadn’t changed. He struggled with the mechanism, pushing and pulling with all his strength, trying to ignore the many whimpers and groans of the angel as he jostled her injured wing. 

At one point, she audibly gasped. 

“It’s okay,” Dean said, “I’m gonna get you free.”

“Dean,” John’s voice echoed through the valley and Dean whipped around to find his father brandishing a shotgun at the angel, “Get away from that thing.”

“She’s hurt!” Dean replied stubbornly, the follies of youth whispering of how he might be able to convince his father not to hurt this one, “And she never hurt anyone!”

“Lies! Angels killed your mother!”

And, once again, Dean could think only of the blue-eyed angel who saved his life. “You’re wrong!” he cried out triumphantly, “An angel saved me from that fire! Sammy too!”

John’s face contorted into one of rage and disgust. “What the  _ hell _ have you done to my son?” he roared, taking a step forwards. The angel tried to pull away in fear, crying out at the pain of moving her injured wing.

“N-nothing!” she whimpered, “I swear! An angel m-must have saved your son...”

“Liar!” John shouted, the bang of the shotgun echoing through the forest before the angel could even scream. 

Later that night, when the angel was disposed of, John beat Dean soundly for showing weakness.

“An angel didn’t save you,” he spat, tossing Dean, still covered in angel blood, into the back of the Impala, “You hear me? And if you think you did, oh…” John’s fingers clenched into a fist, knuckles white, “You’re gonna regret it. Hell, you’re already gonna regret becoming that angel’s bitch.”

The next day, Sam started training with them. It was Sam who rose to the top of training, who was smarter, faster and stronger than Dean. More importantly, it was Sam who was more ruthless. Sam who didn’t have the memory of bright blue eyes flash across his mind every time he saw an angel. Sam, who might not have been coddled by John, but was certainly favored. The angel-killing prodigy, who, before long, didn’t want anything to do with his weak older brother.

John’s punishments were harsh, but losing Sam was the cruelest punishment of all.


	3. Chapter 3

Fifteen years passed.

Dean was twenty five and lived in a small trailer in a tiny town in Idaho called Ashton, population: 1,084. He worked in a gas station, the perfect place to not grow too attached to someone, as most who stopped in were simply passing through. For five years, Dean hadn’t been in contact with his father or brother and a tiny part of him hoped that perhaps one day they would stop through this very gas station en route to a hunt.

They never did.

There had been a huge fight, Dean desperately trying to convince Sam to leave the hunting life and enter college, like he’d wanted to do as a kid. Unlike Dean, Sam was certainly smart enough to get into college. But Sam had never liked being told what to do. Not by Dean and certainly not by John. 

So Sam ran away. John blamed Dean, of course, abandoning him a couple days later at a motel without even a cell phone to back him up.

Dean took it as a sign, a way for him to finally leave the hunting life. Not that he’d been very good at it. His combat skills were ones to be rivaled, he could wield a weapon as easily as breathing and had survived many fights with angels. But that didn’t change the fact that, in all his time hunting them, Dean hadn’t killed a single angel.

John had deemed him a failure because of it.

Despite being twenty years old, however, Dean struggled with the abandonment. He’d almost starved, almost frozen to death in the brutal winter of Idaho, if it hadn’t been for a grizzled woodsman named Bobby, who’d caught Dean trying to steal a can of beans from his cabin.

Bobby, it turned out, was gruff, but ultimately very kind. He’d taken Dean under his wing, in a way, giving him a place to stay, feeding him and even finding him the job at the gas station. Dean hadn’t told him about hunting angels and Bobby, to his credit, had never asked about Dean’s past. 

And so, slowly, Dean had begun to carve out his own life, alone in the harsh Idaho wilderness. He even made a few friends. Ellen, who owned the tiny bar called the Roadhouse, and her spunky daughter, Jo, who had better aim with a rifle than even Dean. Ash, who seemed to be the local handyman. He complained often about the lack of decent Internet service in the area, having fled from San Francisco to avoid a painful breakup and “find himself.” Dean wondered if he had accomplished that, or simply needed an excuse for the mullet he was growing.

The life was quiet. And still. So different from his tumultuous childhood. And it might have stayed that way, if it hadn’t been for the life changing news Dean got one December afternoon.

There had been whispers before this, of course. Rumor of angels hiding out in the surrounding wilds. Dean could spot a hunter anywhere. It wasn’t, as Ellen used to say, because of their tendency to wear angel feathers as trophies of their kills, but rather the way they held themselves. As though they were constantly at war, constantly scanning not just their right and left, but the sky itself. 

For weeks, there had been a steady influx of hunters in the area. Some seasoned, some fresh, but all ready to prove themselves against an angel. The sight of them made Dean’s lip curl and he’d, on more than one occasion, had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from shouting at the particularly crass ones.

He tried, instead, to ignore them. Until he heard the rumor.

It was afternoon and the Roadhouse was practically empty. Which was good for Dean. All the talk of hunting brought back too many painful memories, memories he was more than happy to try and drown out with copious amounts of whiskey. Unfortunately, Jo had been swept away in the excitement of the matter.

“It’s said to have blue eyes,” Jo told Dean excitedly. She was young and naive, without a real idea of what angel hunting truly entailed. For her, it was simply nice to have a change of pace. A distraction during the long and incredibly boring winter. “Which is real rare for an angel.”

Dean’s heart all but stopped. The memory of piercing blue eyes flashed in his mind, the deep gravel voice echoing its words of forgiveness.

“Earth to Dean!” Jo snapped her fingers, giggling as Dean started, spilling his drink slightly, “Were you paying attention?”

“Blue eyes, super rare,” Dean muttered, waving a hand at her before downing the rest of his whiskey. His heart had begun to pound. Was this really the same angel? Was that even possible?

Still, Dean knew he had to try to find out. If this really  _ was _ the angel, he had to find him. Had to do something. Whether that was thank him for saving the life of him and his brother, or to beat the shit out of the angel who had cost Dean his mother  _ and _ the respect of his father, Dean wasn’t entirely sure.

“Though I don’t know why the blue eyes are so important,” Jo continued, not concerned by Dean’s apparent silence, “I mean, there are much bigger prizes out there. This one doesn’t even have a name! Not like Lucifer.”

Dean shivered involuntarily. Lucifer was a name of an angel, quite possibly an angelic leader from the sounds of him, who had  _ snapped _ when the purge of the angels had begun. He fought back, and he fought back with a vengeance. Had even turned a good number of the angels on his side. Even if the angels hadn’t done anything wrong before the war, Lucifer’s crimes against humanity made it impossible to tell which angel was out to bring about good, and which one was out to bring about destruction. 

So it had been decided that, quite simply, all angels had to die.

Still, if there was even a  _ chance _ that the angel in question was the one who saved Dean all those years ago, he had to try to find him. After all, the last thing his rescuer deserved was a brutal death in the cold, lonely wilds of Idaho. Dean downed the last of his whiskey, slamming the cup down a little harder than he’d anticipated.

“I’ve got to find him,” he announced gruffly, tugging his father’s leather jacket, still slightly too big, closer to his frame in preparation for having to re-enter the cold. But Jo’s hand stopped him, reaching across the bar at lightning speed to grip his wrist.

“Like  _ hell _ you are! Angels aren’t like going duck hunting, Dean. And while I’m normally all for taking risks, watching you run blindly into a fight you can’t even comprehend isn’t something I’m gonna let happen.”

“What do you know about angels?” Dean retorted, shocked by the fire in her eyes, “You’re at  _ least _ three years younger than me, and I don’t think you’ve ever left this town.”

“I know enough,” Jo shouted, “I know an angel killed my dad!”

Oh.

Dean stopped trying to pull away and instead reached over the bar to tug Jo into an awkward sort of embrace. He gripped her flannel shirt, pressing a sort of kiss into her tangled blonde hair. “I, uh, I know more about angels than you think,” he muttered. He hadn’t intended to tell anyone, not even Bobby, about the angel hunting, but this seemed to qualify as a special circumstance. “Used to hunt them before I ended up here.”

He expected Jo to be surprised, to pull away, but she simply nodded in his grasp. “Makes sense.”

“What?”

Jo shrugged, pulling away at last. “Mom always said you looked like a soldier.”

Dean couldn’t help but smile. “Ellen knows what she’s talking about, alright.”

“So, why are you hunting this one? You’ve been clean for what, five years now? Why go back?”

Dean’s eyes flicked to his empty bottle, then to the smooth wooden bar, then to a nearby fireplace. It wasn’t out of place in the bar, most places here had fireplaces to not only help increase the warmth of a building, but to, as Jo had put it, increase the “homey” vibe. Fireplaces tended to initiate the opposite sort of reaction from Dean, though, and he avoided them at all costs. It had taken Bobby a lot of coaxing just to get Dean to sit near the fire to try and keep the frostbite from setting in.

The fire just served as another reminder of why he needed to go looking for this angel. “I have a….personal debt to a blue eyed angel.”

“How romantic,” Jo joked, resuming her bar duties and wiping down Dean’s mess.

“It’s not like that,” Dean closed his eyes, trying to ignore the fire and keep the hot memories from flooding back, “It’s just…”

“Something you’ve got to do?” Jo answered. 

Dean appreciated she didn’t try to discuss it further. “Yeah.”

“Then you’d better go tonight,” she replied, “I heard some hunters in here earlier talking strategy and they were gonna strike tomorrow morning. And that’s not even accounting for any other hunting party.” Jo dragged a stool from the kitchen to the front, stepping on it to grab a rifle prominently displayed over the bottles of alcohol. She placed it on the bar with a loud  _ clunk _ .

“What?” her eyebrow shot up at the look of pure surprise on Dean’s face, “It would be pure stupidity to run after an angel, even one you’ve got some sort of debt with, without a weapon. If nothing else, it’ll keep other hunters off your tail. And I know for a  _ fact _ the only weapon you’ve got is that knife you have tucked sheathed in your jacket.

Dean frowned, reaching into his coat pocket to feel the reassuring bone handle of the knife his father had made him. “I can’t take your weapon…”

“You’re just borrowing it,” Jo snapped, pushing the gun towards Dean, “And don’t let my mom catch you with it.”

As his palms gripped the cool metal of the gun, the whole ordeal suddenly felt much more real. He was really doing this. After five years out of the life, he was going to pick up a gun and go chasing some nameless angel through the winter-cloaked forest.

And of course it just  _ had _ to be at night.

Which was why half an hour later, Dean was trudging through a layer of freshly fallen snow, grateful to whatever power it was that cleared the remaining snow clouds and allowed the moonlight to shine through. The moon was full, lighting the nearby forest with a blueish hue. Dean could hear other hunters clamoring through the woods, but he had two advantages.

One was the years of stealth training that John forced upon him. Nobody, not human or angel, was going to get the jump on him. And while he’d despised the brutally strenuous exercises at the time, it was finally coming in handy.

The second thing Dean had going for him was that, unlike these out of town hunters, he  _ knew _ the forest. Knew where all the little cabins were tucked away. Knew where a small pond, now frozen over, sat, and where the river ran through.

Unfortunately, the only thing Dean  _ didn’t _ have was a lead. No word on the angel’s movements and not a single sign of the angel’s presence. No feathers, no footprints, nothing. He couldn’t even hear the faint hum of angel power, a high pitched whine that Dean could often hear if he strained. 

All he can think about as he makes his way through the cold winter forest is those piercing blue eyes. Still, after all these years, seared into his memory like a burn. With every turn around a snow-laden pine tree or darkened cabin, Dean swore he could see those eyes, almost glowing as they stared him down. But every time he blinked, they disappear. It’s just his imagination, Dean reasoned, he’s just jumpy with all these memories coming back so suddenly.

Before long, Dean is, what Bobby would say, good and lost in the forest. It’s just a saying, he’s not exactly lost, but it will take a while for him to make his way back to civilization. He’s cold and wet, the snow has melted through his jeans and boots and his feet sting with every step. His lips are starting to tingle and Dean knows they’re not far from going numb. He didn’t think this hunt through.

Dean’s considering heading back, hefting the rifle up and down to keep the blood flowing in his fingers, when he hears it. Not a crack of branches or the crunch of snow, no, angels are too quick and stealthy for that, but the familiar high pitched whine that seemed to echo the forest. 

His head whirls around, searching for the source of the sound, and Dean comes face to face with another being. Dean’s stumbling backwards before his mind can process the sight, his back crashing against a prickly pine tree and sinking into the snow before the details start rushing in. The beige trench coat. The rumpled dark hair. And, most hauntingly, blue eyes. The same blue eyes Dean saw over two decades ago.

Dean stared up at the angel, looking just as powerful and intimidating as he did when Dean was a child, clouded breaths puffing from his lips at increasingly faster intervals.

The angel cocked his head, making no attempt to harm him as he squinted down at Dean. Curiosity, more than anything. Dean continued to gasp for air, the words catching in his throat as he realizes he doesn’t know what to say to the being that saved his life.

To his surprise, the angel spoke first, voice just as gravely as the first time they had met. “Hello, Dean,” the angel said, “I’ve been looking for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry for the slow update, things are crazy. And, unfortunately, will be continue to be crazy until September as I prepare to move across the country. But I'm glad people are enjoying it and I hope to continue with updates eventually.


	4. Old Acquaintance, New Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the delays between chapters. My life is incredibly crazy right now. I just moved to a new city, I'm searching for a job...it's a lot to process, especially because I'm also trying to finish up about four fics on the side (my bad). Thanks for all the love and support, though.

Dean squinted up at the angel, trying to figure out if he was dreaming. After all, why else would the angel be saying he was looking for  _ him? _ Then again, Dean’s dreams were rarely so detailed. He never could have imagined the melted snow trickling down his thigh, or the puffs of warm air slipping from his lips during the cold winter night.

“Did you not hear me?” the angel cocked his head, “I said I have been looking for you.”

“Great,” Dean croaked, “You, uh, have a specific response in mind for that statement?”

The angel’s eyes swept the area, as if ensuring they were alone. “I suppose not,” the angel conceded, his voice incredibly low. Lines etched the angel’s face, deep marks of worry and stress. Dean wondered briefly if the angel ever smiled. 

“Um, if you’ve been looking for me specifically, you mind giving me a name?” Dean asked tentatively. He felt the piercing blue eyes on him and suddenly, despite the many layers of winter gear Jo had forced him into, he felt absolutely naked. Most angels radiated power, but this one in particular seemed to look at Dean like he  _ knew _ him. All of him, down to his darkest fears and deepest secrets. 

Dean found himself shivering for reasons other than the cold.

“Castiel,” the angel replied, dark wings rustling behind him. Dean felt a swirl of relief as the blue eyes left him and flicked around the forest.

“Cas..tee..el…” Dean repeated slowly, sounding out the foreign name, “What do you need with me?”

Castiel’s eyes swept the area again, hand hovering over a pocket of his trench coat that most likely held a weapon. Most angels Dean had seen fight had slim, metal devices that seemed like long knives. The weapons didn’t seem like much, but in the hands of a seasoned fighter, they’d more than suffice as deadly. “We cannot speak here,” the angel said, “Too dangerous.”

“Then where?”

The angel’s brow furrowed even further, as though Dean’s lack of suggestion was especially worrisome. “Do you not have a residence nearby?”

“Well, I’ve got a place--” 

Castiel stepped forwards, causing Dean to shrink back against the tree, the rifle all but forgotten in his hands. He cursed inwardly; angels didn’t scare him. This angel didn’t even have a weapon drawn, Castiel moved forwards quickly and intently, pressing two fingers to Dean’s forehead before he could even make a sound.

And suddenly, they were no longer in the forest. For a moment, the darkness was hard to adjust to. But it didn’t take long before Dean was able to pick out the familiar shape of his futon. The handmade, so not quite even, coffee table that Bobby had insisted Dean make himself one warm summer day. The empty beer bottles atop it, carefully aligned to form a set of bowling pins for when he grew antsy.

Dean stumbled slightly as he moved to cross the living room, hand outstretched for the lightswitch. He’d barely made it three steps when Castiel snapped his fingers and the lights came on. Dean suppressed another shiver. Just how powerful  _ was _ this angel?

He had apparently voiced this last thought aloud, as Castiel eyed him with what very well might be a hint of amusement. “More powerful than most,” the angel replied, “I am a seraph.” His wings puffed up slightly, a gesture Dean did not understand.

“So,” Dean circled the angel, fingers trembling against the cold metal of the rifle, “What does a powerful angel want with me? This some kind of ‘ghost of Christmas past’ thing?”

The angel cocked his head, confusion sprawling across his face. Dean almost laughed--Castiel looked like a lost puppy--but caught his tongue. After all, he had no idea how offended angels could be. “I am not the manifestation of a lost soul,” Castiel replied, voice incredibly serious, “Nor do I have any affiliation with the Christian holiday.”

“Thanks,” Dean replied, unable to keep a hint of sarcasm out of his voice. Thankfully, Castiel did not pick up on it.

“I have been trying to keep my kind safe,” Castiel explained, “But recently a force has arisen, a power I have not been faced with for many years.”

“Look, Cas,” Dean didn’t even mean to make the nickname, but it slid out so naturally that he rolled with it, “I don’t know if you knew this, but I’m a shit hunter.”

Castiel’s eyes softened. He wandered past Dean’s gun, tentatively poking the garishly green futon. He barely made a sound as he moved. Still, for a guy who tracked Dean out in the middle of nowhere, the angel now seemed oddly preoccupied with the furniture. Dean cleared his throat, gesturing for the angel to sit down. Slowly, Cas sat.

“It is because of your nonviolence, as well as your…” Castiel paused, tongue flicking out to wet his chapped lips in what looked like an effort to think of the right way to phrase things, “...closeness to this particular situation, that I felt you could be trusted.”

“Trusted to help an angel? You really think I’d turn on my own kind?”

“To the contrary!” Castiel’s wings flared on the couch, filling the entire spread. The wings, Dean surmised, must react in some way to the emotions the angel was feeling. Whether fear or indignation, however, Dean couldn’t be sure. “I have been leading a small faction of angels who work to coincide peacefully with humanity.”

_ Yup. Sounds like Cas _ , Dean thought to himself, the nickname slotting into his thought processes seamlessly. He frowned, wondering where in the world that thought could have come from. He barely knew Castiel, aside from the few times the angel stepped in to help when Dean was a child, and the twenty or so minutes they’d spoken now. And while he was at it, Dean knew he was going to have to stop thinking about the soft, dark mess of Castiel’s hair, or his sharp jawline, or his...shit. Was he really checking out an  _ angel _ right now?

“So, what? You want me to play messenger with the humans or something?” Dean asked, hoping to distract himself from other, more frivolous thoughts.

“No,” Castiel sighed, “Unfortunately what I require of you is much more...unpleasant.”

The angel was beating around the bush for reasons Dean couldn’t fathom. A spark of irritation flared within him. He was entirely too sober to be dealing with this shit. Dean set the gun down, making his way into his tiny kitchen. The linoleum floor seemed to harbor a near permanent grey stain and a few used dishes lined the sink. He opened the fridge, rummaging around for a cold beer. Not much else could be counted on to be stocked up, but Dean was certain he’d never run out of alcohol.

He cracked the cap off with a nearby key ring, tossing the cap into the trash and taking a long gulp before making his way back into the living room. Castiel hadn’t even moved, Dean wouldn’t have been surprised if every single feather was still in the exact place they were when Dean left.

Dean sighed. “Spit it out, then.”

Castiel looked up at him, clearly agitated that Dean felt the issue not pressing enough to continue without interruption. “The power I was telling you about? The growing threat to my people? It is none other than your brother.”

Dean coughed on another gulp of whiskey. “Sam? But he’s just a kid.”

Castiel’s eyes narrowed and Dean felt his throat constrict. He’s had angels catch him off guard before (who hasn’t?) but Castiel seems to do it with a special sort of ease. “How long has it been since you’ve seen your brother?”

Now, more than ever, Dean wishes he was drunk for this conversation, shifting ever so slightly between his toes to his heels as the pain of losing Sam sunk in once again. “Five years.”

“Then you barely know him at all,” Castiel replied, voice neutral. 

“I know he can’t be some sort of all powerful angel fighter!”

“He left you,” Castiel uttered, “And he left your father and do you know who found him? Azazel!”

Dean nearly dropped his bottle. He’d heard of Azazel before. The man was famous for his brutal killings of angels. John used to sing his praises, impressed by the level of dedication the man held when it came to torture. There were even rumors that Azazel was somehow beyond human, a rumor that, given Castiel’s facial expression, held some sort of merit.

His stomach churned, wet clothes sticking to his skin in a way that suddenly seemed intensely uncomfortable. The room seemed to oscillate between hot and cold, Dean torn with the strange and sudden desire to tear his jacket off. Everything was so surreal. He was out of this life. He thought Sam was out of this life. Now to find his brother was not only fighting, but had elected to do so under the most calloused man Dean knew of…

Sam couldn’t be with Azazel. He ran away, sure, but there were other places for a teenage boy to go. Plenty of shelters that could, no doubt, take him in. “He can’t,” Dean croaked, “Sam hated the hunting life just as much as I did.”

“But he was good at it,” Castiel replied sourly, “And Azazel has a...way of making power look alluring.”

Still, something about this whole statement didn’t sound right. After all, Sam might not be a kid, but he was still young. Azazel, by all reasoning, should be the real threat to Castiel and the other angels, not Dean’s brother. “What’s so important about Sam, then?”

Castiel’s brow pinches. “You’re not ready for that knowledge,” he stood up, wings fluttering behind him, “Just know that the power Azazel offers is addicting. And your brother has taken more of that dark power than anyone else known to man.”

Whatever Cas isn’t telling him, Dean’s sure is just more bad news. Bad news he already wasn’t prepared to handle. Hell, between Cas’ weird teleporting trick, the near hypothermia and the alcohol swirling around in his belly, Dean can’t help but bend over and vomit, right onto his own hardwood floor.

The angel is by his side in moments, Dean dimly aware of how gentle the being is. He helps Dean upright, then leads him to the couch, concern etching his face. Odd, how the angel could be so concerned about someone who’s really, as far as Dean can tell, only caused him trouble.

“You’re here because this is my fault, aren’t you?” Dean whispered, staring at the tacky brown and red carpet that spans half the living room. He’d bought it for cheap, it had been the first amenity he’d ever purchased. “If I hadn’t driven Sammy away…”

Castiel shook his head. “Your brother has always had the potential for darkness,” he replied mournfully, “A potential that only increased with the death of his nurturing mother and the increasingly questionable acts committed by his father. You might be the only link Sam has left to true humanity.”

Heart aching, Dean couldn’t help but reach up to grasp his necklace with one hand. The ridges of the odd face that hung from a cord around his neck were painfully familiar. When they were kids, Sam had found the necklace at some odd roadside attraction and spent all the money he had on it. He’d been so excited to give it to Dean that year. Dean still remembered that smile, riddled with a wide gap at the top of his mouth where Sammy had lost both his front teeth, when Sam told him that the necklace would protect him.

He’d worn it ever since.

Dean wondered briefly if maybe there was some truth to Sam’s statement. After all, he was the only one in his family to seem to have missed the dark obsession of angel hunting. He closed his eyes, giving the necklace a squeeze as he tried to control his breathing, to control the fear coursing through him at the thought of Sam becoming something evil.

“Take me to him.” When Dean spoke, his voice was ragged. Tired. He looked up to meet Castiel’s eyes, hoping the angel would understand.

The blue eyes were full of pity. “Dean...I can’t. He’s warded himself from me.”

“So, how--”

“You will need to find his location,” the angel replied simply, “Only then can I help you travel there. But you will need to hurry. There is not long before your brother takes his place as Boy King.”

  
Even though Dean did not recognize the term, a dark shiver of fear ran through him at the words  _ Boy King. _ He nodded to Castiel, downing the remainder of his beer in one gulp. “I’ll find him.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated! Seriously. You have no idea how much comments make my day.


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